Making language selection smarter in Wikipedia

Excerpt

It’s time to make Wikipedia language selection smarter -- to offer a user languages he/she actually wants to see in an article, and in an efficient way. In this talk we shall learn about :
1.The need for a compact language selector
2.How we achieved it in an Outreach Program for Women project.
3.What criteria we use to determine which languages might be most useful to a user, and why
4.How we implemented the feature
5.What concerns we heard from the Wikimedia community about this project
6.How everyone can help pitch in to make this project a success

Description

Wikipedia caters to over 400 different languages. A popular article can, thus, have a really long list of languages hovering in the sidebar. It’s becoming increasingly important to save users from the cumbersome process of searching their choice of language and make this process faster for them.

For years, users have asked us to make language selection smarter. It’s been in the works, too, with the UniversalLanguageSelector created in 2012 as a foundation. ULS gave us a platform so we could develop this project, Compact Language Selector, in 2013 and get it deployed this March on all major interlanguage-wikis. The project is in Beta now and users can enable it after logging in.

This talk revolves around why we need such a feature, if at all, and the factors which triggered a need for it. We’ll look into how this feature has been developed, glancing at the implementation briefly. We’ll discuss what all factors we take into consideration for deciding what languages are best suited for a wiki user. We shall be seeking feedback from the audience, also pointing out few of the concerns about the feature raised by the community.

Speakers

Biography

Hi, this is Sucheta! I would say I am a FOSS enthusiast just, if I had not almost taken it up as my Religion. :)

I am currently an OPWomen Intern at Wikimedia, working on the EtherEditor project. I am a FOSS user since 2008 and a contributor since 2011. I am a member of several Linux User Groups. And run one, in my college Netaji Subhash Engineering College. I actively contribute to various open source projects like Mozilla( Fennec Browser), Fedora Project ( Translator ), by both coding and organizing several outreach events. Also. I am an active Wikimedian from Kolkata chapter and a serious contributor to Wikipedia.

Sessions

It’s time to make Wikipedia language selection smarter — to offer a user languages he/she actually wants to see in an article, and in an efficient way. In this talk we shall learn about :
1.The need for a compact language selector
2.How we achieved it in an Outreach Program for Women project.
3.What criteria we use to determine which languages might be most useful to a user, and why
4.How we implemented the feature
5.What concerns we heard from the Wikimedia community about this project
6.How everyone can help pitch in to make this project a success

Biography

Niharika is a final year undergrad from New Delhi, India with a passion for open source and programming. Niharika has been an OPW intern and a GSoC intern in 2014. She is currently working as a contract developer for the Wikimedia Foundation and is in love with her job. She has prior speaking experience at college meetups and at Open Source Bridge in 2014.

Sessions

It’s time to make Wikipedia language selection smarter — to offer a user languages he/she actually wants to see in an article, and in an efficient way. In this talk we shall learn about :
1.The need for a compact language selector
2.How we achieved it in an Outreach Program for Women project.
3.What criteria we use to determine which languages might be most useful to a user, and why
4.How we implemented the feature
5.What concerns we heard from the Wikimedia community about this project
6.How everyone can help pitch in to make this project a success